You can have a lot of fun with £824. In fact, the Money Shot is pretty confident it could keep itself in own-brand fizzy pop, snacks and cut-price finery for a good long while with that sort of money.

But alas, £824 is the amount your average 30 year-old who earns about £26,000 every year needs to be putting aside every month just to have something resembling a decent retirement. That’s if research from the deVere group, an international financial advice firm, is to be believed.

It seems like a heck of a lot of money. After rent, taxes and bills, you’re not really going to get a lot of change from your monthly pay packet if you decide to put £824 into a pension pot every month. It would almost certainly mean that gallivanting, making merry and generally having a rare old time of it would probably be off the cards for most of us - which sort of defeats the point of working, really.

Speaking with the easy everyman empathy which only comes with being the chief executive of a global financial advice firm, deVere group head honcho Nigel Green tutted: “Unless you have the discipline to put money aside whilst you're working, it is, unfortunately, likely that you'll need to drastically reconsider your retirement plans when you hit 65,” presumably while reversing his custom-plated Bentley into a designated car parking space at the golf club.

He continued: "Failure to save for your mature years whilst you're earning will probably mean that you'll need to work into your 70s, or that you'll have to considerably compromise your lifestyle when you retire - neither option is particularly appealing for most people.”

In the spirit of ‘user generated content’ (And because it’s Friday, the sun’s out and The Money Shot has a word count to fill) we turned to social media to canvas opinion on whether young-ish folk earning ‘normal’ amounts of money could afford to put £824 aside…

“In theory I should be able to do it really easily, but as you said, what about the gallivanting?”

Richard John, London

“I've just done some sums, and I reckon I'd need to earn somewhere around £60k to do that”

Tim Brown, Crouch End, London

“Certainly not me; surely not anyone?! That’s a huge whack!”

Kristan Caryl, Leeds

“Basically, nobody I know could even DREAM of doing such a thing, and they're the ones that are going to need help when they retire. The people that can afford to squirrel away huge sums of money are already minted and therefore likely have juicy retirement provisions in place already. Freelancers and self-employed folk, like myself, are basically doomed, so it'll be off to the Sleep Shop with us long before we hit 65.”

Rachel England, London

“No chance of that. There's nowhere near that amount left even after just the core bills and rent are paid.”

Alex Kirkham,Anglesey

No flipping chance, that's the wackest thing I've read all day!

Dean Skyrme, Somerset

And finally, possibly our favourite....

ROFLLOLZLMFAO

Christopher Labeija Xtravaganza, Cardiff

So, there you have it. We’ll all be working to the grave, by the looks of it. But hey, at least we’ll have had fun doing it. Right guys? RIGHT?

Short Change – money news in brief

A bit of research from this very parish has found that consumers, on the whole, feel 40% poorer than they did a year ago. (Possibly because they’ve all been diverting £824 a month into a pension plan)

British Gas has promised that it will scrap energy contract ‘rollovers’ for small business customers.

Insurers have called on mandatory MRI scans for whiplash complainants.

Mortgage lending continued to grow in June, and reached its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2008, when all the bad stuff really started to happen.

Newcastle United striker Pappis Cisse, a devout Muslim, has refused to turn out for the club on their pre-season tour, on account of being forced to wear a strip emblazoned with the logo of short-term loan firm Wonga.

On Covered mag this week

Rachel England’s quest to decide which was better out of the city and countryside continued apace. The picture of the writer as a young goth is worth the price of admission alone.

A cork-hatted Graham Thomas returned excitedly from his odyssey Down Under, bearing the news that when it comes to watching sport, Aussies rule.